The two big banking stocks drifted lower in thin trading on the Dublin market, and there is little indication yet that trading in size is going to resume for the next couple of weeks at least. With not a single stock apart from Irish Life trading more than one million shares, the market remains with any clear pattern and it will take the return of institutional investors to give the market some impetus.
Irish Life & Permanent has been in some demand in recent days on positive overseas comment and the share jumped another 12 cents to €9.37 in volume of 1.35 million shares. AIB and Bank of Ireland, however, were weaker with AIB down 13 cents on €9.62 while Bank of Ireland lost 10 cents to €6.67.
Industrials were mixed with Ryanair one of the biggest fallers with a 31-cent fall to €8.74 although turnover in the share was less than 190,000 shares. Kerry jumped 30 cents to a new €14.50 high but again this was the case of a tightly-held stock being bid up on tiny volumes. Glanbia fell as low as 60 cents before closing down 2 cents on 63 cents while IAWS came off its recent high and lost 30 cents to €7.80.
Among the large capitalisation industrials, CRH added 6 cents to €17.96 while Eircom fell as low as €2.60 before eventually closing 4 cents lower on €2.63. Elan was trading 79 cents lower on the NYSE by midday on $53.44.
There was little activity among technology shares although Iona continued to come off recent highs while Smartforce was up almost 3 per cent by midday.
